Every two years all eight seats on Raleigh’s City Council (including the Mayor’s) is up for grabs. If you’re interested in running for a City Council seat, or just want to learn what a candidate has to go through, read on. This article won’t cover campaign strategy, how to solicit for donations, or how to win. Instead, it’ll focus on how to determine if you’re eligible to run, where to go to sign up, and some basics of what to expect during the election cycle. This is all based on my own volunteer experience during the 2017 Raleigh City Council election.
Disclaimer: Information on the Wake County Board of Elections and NC Board of Elections websites, and any other website with authority on the 2019 Raleigh
Your #1 resource for the legal aspects of running for City Council will be the Wake County Board of Elections. This is where you’ll go to become a candidate for office, submit your financial forms, find voter information, and more. Start off by visiting the candidate section of the board of elections here. You’ll also be using the State Board of Elections website pretty frequently for access to training, financial reports, and additional information.
Am I Eligible to run?
The formal requirements are pretty easy.
- You must be 21 years old.
- You must reside in the district that you plan to run in.
- You must be a registered voter in the district you plan to run in.
- You must live in the Raleigh Municipal area (pay city taxes)
There’s other stuff you’ll need to be able to do though that’s a bit more tedious and complex.
- Be able to pay the filing fee when you register as a candidate ($100 in 2017 election)
- Attend mandatory campaign finance compliance training or have someone who you’re not married to willing to serve as your campaign treasure attend the training.
- File regular finance reports on your expenses and income for your campaign
- Typically there’s an exception to filing these reports if you intend to raise or spend very little money on your campaign. Check the Wake County Board of Elections website for details.
- Open a special bank account specifically for all finances related to your campaign and ensure you’re keeping your campaign funds and private funds separate.
- Accurately track campaign donations and expenses for said financial reporting.
- File for your candidacy at the board of elections within 10 days of publicly declaring your candidacy, or taking action to support your candidacy (example, you opened a checking account for your campaign, you’d need to file within 10 days of opening that account).
Keep in mind the above is just the minimum you need to be able to do to run for office (and I’m likely forgetting a
Signing Up to Become a Candidate
” Within 10 days of opening a bank account, accepting or spending money in support of your candidacy, announcing your candidacy publicly, or filing either a notice of candidacy or Statement of Organization at the Board of Elections office. “
Wake County Board of Elections Website FAQ
Your decision to run starts having legal implications the moment you do anything in the above quote. You have to be very careful about when you trigger this process. You can have not only other candidates filing complaints against
There are two main parts to legally making yourself a candidate, and you do both at the Wake County Government building in downtown Raleigh (Actually, the Wake County board of elections is moving on June 3rd 2019 to 1200 N. Hope Road, Raleigh so any part of this process occurring after that date is done at the new location). The first is creating your political committee. This is basically your legal entity that is your campaign. You’ll open banking accounts under this committee name, handle expenses and payments under this committee name, and of course file your financial statements with the board of elections under this committee name. Remember, you need to create this committee with the board of elections within 10 days of announcing or accepting/spending money in support of your campaign.
The second task is filing your notice of candidacy. While you can create your political committee with the Board of Elections at almost any time, there’s a very small window to file your notice of candidacy. For the 2019 election, the window is July 5th 12 PM till July 19th 12 PM. More information HERE.
Beyond The Basic Requirements
Once you’ve completed the committee and notice of candidacy requirements with the Board of Elections you’re officially a candidate for office! Congratulations!
However, if you want to remain a candidate and ensure your name is on the election ballot in October you’ll need to ensure you’ve got someone to serve as your campaign treasurer and file your financial reports as required with the Board of Elections.
If you want to win, there’s a whole lot more work for you to do. You’ll want to have a campaign manager who will be there to help advise you, ensure you’re signed up to attend public events and discussions with local political organizations and groups, that your finances are being handled correctly by your treasurer, that you’re connected to the local press and they’re covering you fairly, that your other volunteers/organizers/consultants are doing their work and provided with tasks, and much much more. Why can’t you do this all yourself? Because you’ll be busy knocking on doors, attending events and speaking engagements, calling people to ask for their support and donations, debating fellow candidates, giving interviews to the media, and doing everything possible to keep the stress down.
The most important thing for you to manage in this process is stress. Running for public office is an extremely nerve grinding process. The more successful your campaign is, the more stress you will face. Your stance on important issues will be criticized, but you should also be ready to deal with personal attacks as well. Being able to manage your stress, and have thick skin is the most important skill for your campaign. Surrounding yourself with capable people who support you is vital to keeping that stress level down. Successfully managing the phycological impact of running for public office won’t win your election by itself, but it will almost certainly cause you to lose if you don’t try to manage it.
Scared? Don’t Be.
The information above isn’t everything you need to run for Raleigh City Council in 2019, yet alone win. However, I don’t want people to get scared off of running for public office when they read this. If you’re running for City Council because you believe you can make Raleigh a better place then RUN! If you take running for office seriously, you’ll come out of the race with a life experience you’ll be telling people about for the rest of your life. It will be a mix of good and bad memories, but it will have an impact on you, and hopefully your community as well.
Even those who run for City Council and lose still get their voices heard and make change happen. If you work hard, and build support, then your ideas and your voice will not die off even if you don’t win a seat on Council. Since Raleigh City Council terms are two years, your next chance to try will always be never more than a year away.
